Hyderabad: Popular novelist and poet Ismail Kadare died of cardiac arrest in Tirana, Albania. He was 88.
In 2005, Ismail Kadare became the inaugural winner of the International Booker Prize for his entire body of work. He was twice longlisted after that, in 2017 and just this year.
In a tweet, “We are deeply saddened to hear of the death of Ismail Kadare, who in 2005 became the inaugural winner of the International Booker Prize for his entire body of work. He was twice longlisted after that, in 2017 and just this year.”
According to The Booker Prizes, 19 years ago, the judges described him as ‘a universal writer in the tradition of storytelling that goes back to Homer’. On accepting the prize, Kadare said: ‘My firm hope is that European and world opinion may henceforth realise that this region, to which my country, Albania, belongs, can also give rise to other kinds of news and be the home of other kinds of achievement.’
